Man Down
by castlefic
Summary: Beckett and Esposito race to find Castle after he's taken from his loft. After tracking him down to a parking garage, things take a definite turn. Rated M for future chapters! Opinions much appreciated.
1. Man Down

They crouched low behind the Lincoln in the dark multi-storey and unholstered their guns silently. Esposito held up two fingers and pointed a finger towards the bumper. Beckett took a breath and steadied her weapon. Two fingers, two men. Two men that had been tailing her for the past three days. Two men that had no idea they were about to be ambushed by New York's finest. Beckett exploded sideways at them as Esposito cleared the hood, weapon drawn, battle cry loud and ringing from the walls. The men had had little time to react when the detectives had caught them at close range and startled them, and they'd drawn their Sig Sauers instinctively, splitting up to become separate moving targets. Beckett ID'd herself, knowing full well it would make no difference. They had Castle. They weren't going to lie down without a fight and they knew it. She didn't care.  
"NYPD!" She yelled, levelling her own gun at the man's chest. "Put your weapon…" the sound of a shot from his gun drowned out the rest of the sentence and she felt the whistle of the bullet as it grazed an inch above her head. She rolled, ducked behind a concrete pillar and checked for Espo who had done the same. She watched the two men in the reflection of the car window, held her breath and calculated the distance, and sprang to her feet. Her aim was good and her bullet sent one of the men cart wheeling backwards into the black sedan they'd been using to tail her, his shoulder blown out, blood on the glass. The second man quickly rounded the pillar where Esposito had been crouched moments earlier, raising his gun and shooting haphazardly. The bullets missed their mark. Esposito was gone. Beckett began to run toward him as she saw the detective reveal himself from behind a car, the stranger pivoting to shoot as he backed away, watching as if in slow motion as Esposito raised his weapon.  
"Espo, NO!" She yelled. If both men were dead, they'd never find Castle.

Half a second was all it took for her to level her gun at the second man's hand and pull the trigger, watching as his look of horror turned to agony as his palm exploded around the gun and he crumpled to the floor. Beckett was on him in a second.  
"Where's Castle?" She yelled, barrel to his temple. "Why are you following me? Where is he?"  
"My hand!" The man yelled. "My hand!" He was turning white quicker than he was giving her information, and Beckett was worried he'd pass out before telling her anything.  
"You have another one, and if you don't tell me where Castle is, I will put a bullet in that one too." She wound the fingers of her free hand further into his collar. "Where is he?"  
"In the trunk! He's in the trunk!" The man put his remaining hand to his face, whimpering and groaning in pain as Beckett released him and Esposito cuffed him roughly, ripping a key from his pocket and throwing it to Beckett as she rattled at the latch on the trunk with panicked hands. "Bracken's appeal team just wanted to scare you off…" As the lid popped open, the first thing Richard Castle saw as the light hit his eyes was the first man that Beckett had shot raising his gun from his slumped position and shooting at her.


	2. Anchor

She opened her eyes into the blackness. And she remembered. When she had popped the trunk and saw Castles pale face, there was no relief etched into his features. He looked beyond her, pupils dilating with fear and suddenly he was grabbing at her, pulling her toward him as the gunshot cracked behind her.  
Espo had saved her life. Doctors said he would be fine, that he was stable but he'd lost a lot of blood and the surgery had worn him down. The bullet had been a through and through, grazing the bone in his upper arm and nicking an artery. He'd shot back, putting a bullet in the shooter that ended the fight in a literal heartbeat. As Castle had called for backup and an ambulance, she'd tried to stop the bleeding as her friend had lain in fading consciousness on the floor. She'd told him not to follow her. She'd told him she was going alone and he hadn't listened. And now he was hurt, and it was her fault.  
In the darkness, she was overwhelmed. It sunk around her like a blanket, and she felt the events of the day rising up in her throat, trying to choke her. It should have been her. It would have been. And if he'd missed, and it had been Castle? If he'd found his mark, and shot her? Brackens team were appealing his sentence - this was a message. Did she want to fight this battle all over again? Could she find the strength, after sending him away the first time, to go through it all over again?  
She curled up into a ball, tugging the blankets around her as she began to sob. The stinging of the tears felt new and raw and she realised how very rarely she cried, how often she'd held on the mask and powered on. She tried to stifle a sob into the blanket as the sheet stirred next to her, and in the dim light she saw Castle, concern etched softly on his face, sliding closer to her. She buried her face into the pillow, not wanting him to see her like that, and felt two warm hands take her shoulders and pull her to his side, nestling her gently against his broad chest. He said nothing. He understood. She felt her sobs pour into him, cathartic and healing and she wrapped herself around him, afraid that whatever was happening would carry her away and sweep her up in the current, away from her anchor. And as he sat in silence, cradling her gently like a frightened animal, as she felt his hands soothing the shakes from her back, she knew she could do it. She knew she could face Bracken again, and as she raised her tear streaked face to his, she knew Castle had been awake all night thinking the same, but for him, it was worse. Beckett and Esposito had come for him, and it weighed heavy on his mind. She reached for him, extending a finger to touch the bruise that flourished along his jaw, closing her eyes in the warmth of his body as he bent to kiss the tears from her cheeks softly, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear.

"I'm sorry." He whispered into her ear, the low warmth in the bass of his voice sending vibrations through her.

"It's not your fault." She'd replied, kissing him sadly and trying to take away the guilt that she knew had plagued him. "I love you." She breathed into his lips, and she felt the hint of his smile against her mouth as he said it back.


	3. Heartbeat

They dozed together, slipping into a blissful post-coital sleep that let their heart rates come down from the rafters. Beckett rolled onto her front, shimmying up the bed to rest her head on his broad chest, gazing up at him and smiling softly.

"It's not your fault, you know." She said gently. "I told him not to come." Castle looked down at her, eyelashes resting closed for a long time, brow creased in thought.

"I just keep seeing the gun," His voice was quiet, serious. "Aiming at you." His eyes opened and in the light that peeked through the curtains they were electric blue. "I watched you get shot once. I nearly lost you... And now Esposito is in hospital because he came to save me." He shook his head. "Both times, the common factor was... Me." He raked a hand through his hair and she pressed herself to his side, a hand grazing his cheek to turn his gaze toward her.

"The common factor is Bracken, Castle." She stroked the bruise that peeked through the dusting of stubble on his cheek and he smiled at her. She propped herself up on her elbows and inspected the cut along his lip where Brackens men had beaten him. She dipped to kiss it softly, feeling his breathing stall and his chest hitch against her skin. He froze as she placed a kiss at the corner of his mouth and beneath her palm she felt his heart suddenly bumping against his ribs.

"Still?" She laughed quietly, feeling the rhythmic beat beneath her fingers quicken as she slid on top of him, testing the effect she knew it would have on him. He gazed up at her, unashamedly adoring. "Always." He said.

Top of Form

Bottom of Form


	4. Hospital

They visited Esposito in the hospital the next morning, slipping in arm in arm past the single guard in the hall. Beckett felt Castles stride stiffen, shortened and uncomfortable, and she chanced a sideways glance at him. His face was pale, the bruising along his jaw turning an ugly bluish purple, and in the half second before he caught her looking at him she saw panic bubbling behind his eyes, claustrophobic and constricting. It was only there for a second, but she'd seen it, and as he covered it in an instant with a soft smile and a hand in the small of her back, he knew she'd seen it too.

Esposito lay in bed, oxygen mask carving into his sallow cheeks as he slept deeply. His nurses had said he'd bled badly, and the complications had come not from the bullet itself, but the massive blood loss. They stood silently next to the bed for a moment, watching his chest rise and fall rhythmically, waiting for a sign of movement. None came. Castle pulled over two chairs and they sat quietly either side of the bed, both feeling the weight of immeasurable guilt dragging at them, lost in their own thoughts that intersected and overlapped the others, keeping watch over their sleeping friend.

Castle sat, gazing into space and picking apart the last week, when his eyes refocused on the here and now. The here and now that morphed into the shape of Beckett, corner of one lip pinched firmly between her teeth as she fought to tamp down the tears that had suddenly rushed her from the sidelines, hidden in her thoughts and doubts and in the back of her mind, all bearing down on her in unison. To break her, to overcome her. Anger mixed with fear, mixed with sadness, with guilt. Hatred. She felt it all, all raw and painful and all so seemingly unfair and unjust. It was supposed to be over. She had let herself be blissfully happy in the fact that it was _over_. And with sudden clarity she realised that it never had been, not really, and that she was a ticking time bomb that had been reignited. She knew it wouldn't end, and she knew that until Bracken was dead or had killed everyone that she cared about, she would never be safe and this would never be over.

Castle rose, stepping around the bed until he stood behind her, a hand on each shoulder, and suddenly she couldn't be sitting next to Esposito's hospital bed any more. The room was too small, the lights too bright and glaring, the walls closing in on themselves, the sound of the monitors and his breathing like nails on a chalk board that might send her insane if she sat still and let the tide sweep her under. She had never been one for self pity, and it wouldn't do her any good now. She bolted from the room, down the corridor and slammed through the double doors into the car park before she even felt Castle grab her wrist.

"No!" She yelled, snatching herself free. "Castle, just leave me alone …"

"What the hell…" He stared at her slack jawed, hand still in mid air where she had shaken him off.

"Go home."

"No."

"I'm serious, just go…" She turned again and felt the close of his fingers around her wrist. "Get off of me."

"Stop." He held firm, his fingers like cuffs around her wrists.

"Castle, get OFF of me!" She began to shove, to wriggle free, to fight against the claustrophobia and the fear and the hate and the injustice. "Get off of me!" She was sobbing now, shoving and beating at his chest, but the hands held firm.

"Stop…"

"Please." She cried. "Please, before something happens to you, too." Her sobs hitched in her throat and she froze. "I couldn't take that again, Rick, please…"

"No…" He said softly. "Kate… No…" and that was all it took for the fight to leave her body in a wave. Her arms went limp and he folded her into his chest as she wept, bitter stinging tears that burned with hate and fear. "None of this is your fault… You know that."

"This is never ending." She whispered into his shirt. "And it always comes back to me."

"To Bracken." He corrected, the soothing bump of his heartbeat against her cheek. "The common factor is him. You told me that." He unlaced her from his arms and produced a tissue from his jacket. "Thought you might need this."

"Thanks." She coughed a weak laugh and they sank into a bench close by. "You ok in there? You looked a little freaked out when we went in…"

"Oh…" He waved a hand. "I don't like the smell of TCP."

"And…?" She raised her eyebrows at him, waiting for him to continue. "Oh come on Castle, you don't panic over antiseptic."

"You." He said softly, kicking at a stone with the heel of his shoe.

"Me?"

"It's the same ward you were in when you got shot. I half expected to see…" He shrugged. Stood. "Hakuna Matata." He held a hand out to her and helped her to her feet, hugging her gently and kissing the top of her head. They walked back to Espositos room arm in arm, using each other for support in more ways than each would ever know. A nurse passed them on the way to the front desk, smiled widely at them and checked a chart.

"Your friend's just woken up." She said.


End file.
